OQ Trading International of Oman has proposed building a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) at Moheshkhali to ease Bangladesh’s growing LNG regasification bottleneck.

The facility, with a capacity of about 3.75 million tonnes per year, would be developed under a build-own-operate-and-transfer (BOOT) arrangement, Petrobangla officials confirmed.

“We’ve received a proposal from OQ Trading and are currently scrutinising it,” Petrobangla Chairman Md Reznur Rahman told The Financial Express on Saturday.

Bangladesh currently operates two FSRUs with a combined capacity of 1,100 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), but regasification has reached saturation at around 1,050 mmcfd. Local gas output has also fallen sharply to 1,800 mmcfd, its lowest in more than a decade, compared with a peak of 2,786 mmcfd in 2015.

“If new FSRUs or land-based LNG terminals are not built, Bangladesh will face a severe natural gas crisis very soon,” said energy expert Prof Ijaz Hossain.

The proposal follows Bangladesh’s first-ever short-term LNG deal signed last month with OQ Trading, covering 17 cargoes between August 2025 and December 2026.

Uniquely, the deal is priced against the Japan Korea Marker (JKM) benchmark, plus a 15-cent premium per million British thermal units, marking a shift from Bangladesh’s existing Brent-linked contracts.

Bangladesh already has two long-term LNG supply agreements with OQ Trading alongside its contract with QatarEnergy.